GAZA: A truce between Israel and Hamas was extended on Thursday, just one day before it was set to end. The two sides said it would last for one more day under the same terms that allowed prisoners to be freed in exchange for inmates.
When the fighting was about to end at 0500GMT, Israel’s forces said the “operational pause” would be extended.
“In light of the mediators’ efforts to continue the process of releasing the hostages and subject to the terms of the framework, the operational pause will continue,” it stated.
After that, the prime minister’s office confirmed the extension by saying it had gotten a new list of prisoners.
“A short time ago, Israel was given a list of women and children in line with the terms of the agreement,” it said, but it didn’t say how long the truce would last.
At the same time, Hamas said that a deal had been made to “extend the truce for a seventh day,” but they didn’t give any more information.
The report said that Israel at first refused to extend the ceasefire even though it offered to hand over seven prisoners and the bodies of three more.
It was confirmed by Qatar, which is in charge of the peace talks, that the pause had been extended for one more day “under the same previous conditions.”
As more people called for the pause to be extended, the news came just hours after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Israel on Wednesday night.
It has temporarily stopped the fighting that started on October 7. After that, Israel launched an air and ground operation in Gaza that killed almost 15,000 people, mostly civilians, and destroyed large parts of the north of the territory.
The cease-fire can be extended if Hamas can free an extra 10 prisoners every day, but both sides had already said they were ready to start fighting again.
Hamas’s armed wing told its fighters to “maintain high military readiness… in anticipation of a resumption of combat if it is not renewed,” according to a message on the group’s Telegram channel.
And Doron Spielman, a spokeswoman for the IDF, said that if the cease-fire ended, troops would “move into operational mode very quickly and continue with our targets in Gaza.”
Ten more Israeli prisoners were freed overnight as part of the deal. Four more Thai hostages and two Israeli-Russian women were freed without the deal’s terms being met.
Gunmen in masks were seen giving prisoners to the International Committee of the Red Cross in a video posted by Hamas.
Liat Beinin was one of those freed. She is an American citizen and works as a guide at Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust museum.
Vice President Joe Biden of the US said he was “deeply gratified” by the release. “This deal has delivered meaningful results,” he said of the peace.
As soon as the hostages got to Israel, 30 Palestinian inmates, including the well-known activist Ahed Tamimi, were freed, according to the country’s prison service.
Since the cease-fire began on November 24, 70 Israeli prisoners have been set free in exchange for 210 Palestinian inmates.
Many of the 30 people who were freed are Thais living in Israel and were not part of the deal.
Israel has made it clear that it sees the ceasefire as a short-term measure to free prisoners, but more and more people want the killing to stop for good.
Antonio Guterres, the secretary-general of the UN, called for a “true humanitarian ceasefire” and said that the people of Gaza are “in the midst of an epic humanitarian catastrophe.”
But China also called for a “sustained humanitarian truce” right away in a position paper released Thursday. Their top official, Wang Yi, was in New York for talks with the Security Council about the violence.
The hostage releases have caused both happiness and pain, as families wait each night to find out if their loved ones will be freed.
An armed wing of Hamas, on the other hand, said Wednesday that an Israeli bombing in Gaza killed a 10-month-old baby hostage, his 4-year-old brother, and their mother. The Israeli army said it was looking into this report.
Before the truce, Israel hit the Gaza Strip hard, causing about 1.7 million people to leave their homes and making it hard for food, water, medicine, and fuel to get in.
The World Food Program says that things are still “catastrophic” in the area and that there is a “high risk of famine” for the people who live there.
A lot of hospitals in northern Gaza were hit by Israeli forces during the fighting because they thought Hamas was using them for military reasons. Israel said things that Hamas refuted, and there was no proof of that.
According to Ashraf al-Qudra, a spokeswoman for the Gaza health ministry, five premature babies were found dead in Gaza City’s Al-Nasr hospital on Wednesday. The hospital’s staff had been forced to leave the babies there.
People who had to leave their homes can now go back because of the peace, but for many, there isn’t much left.
When 46-year-old Taghrid al-Najjar got back to her home in southeastern Gaza, she said, “I found that my house had been completely destroyed. I worked on it for 27 years and now it’s all gone.”
The fighting in Gaza has also made things worse in the West Bank. Since October 7, the Palestinian health ministry says that Israeli soldiers or settlers have killed nearly 240 Palestinians.
The most recent people to die in the occupied area were an eight-year-old boy and a teenager. Israel said it “responded with live fire… and hits were identified” after suspects threw explosives at troops.
“Two dead in Jerusalem”
Soon after the deal was made public, Israeli police said two Palestinian attackers opened fire at a bus stop at the entrance to Jerusalem in the middle of the morning rush hour, killing two and hurting eight. It said that both of the attackers were “neutralized.”
“Two terrorists arrived at the scene in a vehicle armed with firearms, these terrorists opened fire towards civilians at the bus station and were subsequently neutralised by security forces and a nearby civilian,” police stated.
